Lead Man Holler

The young man used to ride the New York subways with a pencil in his
pocket and a chip on his shoulder. Sometimes, when he saw the placards
for a cosmetic lotion urging straphangers to preserve the soft white
beauty of their hands, he would take out his pencil and scrawl derisive
comments: "How about Negro hands?" or "What if you're Chinese?" Car
cards urging brotherhood and tolerance got the inscription: "There is
bigotry in America." The girl who often rode with him would
remonstrate, but the...